Elections

Democracy for Losers

Some candidates who lose elections strengthen democracy, but others threaten the democratic system itself.

  • Jan-Werner Müller

A Perfect Storm of Vulnerabilities Could Determine the 2020 Election

Here’s what we should do.

  • Jake Braun

Without Women There Is No Democracy

On the hundreth anniversary of suffrage, it’s time for gender equity in political office.

  • Jennifer M. Piscopo
  • Shauna L. Shames

From the Editors: The Right to Be Elected

What does gender equity in a democracy look like?

  • Deborah Chasman
  • Joshua Cohen

Can More Political Parties Fix American Democracy?

Some think it would cure two-party gridlock. But what works in parliamentary governments might not help in our presidential system.

  • Sam Rosenfeld

“Hello, We Are from Wisconsin, and We Are Your Future”

As Wisconsinites are forced to vote during a pandemic, it’s worth recalling the 2011 Wisconsin Uprising, and the valuable lessons that can be gleaned from labor organizing in the face of disaster.

  • Eleni Schirmer

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How to Mend Our Broken Electoral Process

We must institute a method of electing a president that is sensitive to the votes of Americans everywhere.

  • Reed Hundt

Politics Is for Power, Not Consumption

Political hobbyism takes well-meaning citizens away from pursuing power.

  • Eitan Hersh

Solid Trumpism

Trump’s secret to success is that he expresses his base’s deep sense of alienation and grievance—cultural and social far more than economic.

  • Ronald Aronson

Finding the Future in Radical Rural America

Rural places weren’t always red, and many are turning increasingly blue.

  • Elizabeth Catte
with responses from
  • Nancy Isenberg
  • Michael Kazin
  • Bob Moser
  • Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson
  • Elaine Kamarck
  • Matt Stoller
  • Jessica Wilkerson
  • Hugh Ryan
  • Ruy Teixeira

Get Organized

“Organizing is the strategy on which the success of all others depend. Yet it is the strategy that most progressives talk about the least.”

The Most Radical City on the Planet

The long history of black resistance in Jackson, Mississippi.

  • Makani Themba

Racism and the Wisconsin Idea

Scott Walker and Paul Ryan broke from Wisconsin’s long progressive history. But as liberals search for what went wrong, they must not ignore the state’s legacy of systemic racism and inequity. 

  • S. Ani Mukherji

Monarchy of Fear

A Boston Review Book Talk with Martha C. Nussbaum

  • Boston Review
  • Martha C. Nussbaum

Errol Morris on Steve Bannon’s Dangerous “Dharma”

Morris on his new film—and what’s at stake in trying to understand its subject.

  • Errol Morris
  • Deborah Chasman

The Fragile Legacy of Barack Obama

Obama refused to fight the political battles necessary to forge sustainable policies and a presidential legacy.

  • Elaine Kamarck

Two Cheers for Polarization

We may not like it, but when it comes to U.S. politics, polarization may very well be part of the solution.

  • Sam Rosenfeld

Against Second-Rate Democracy in Kenya

Citizens of African countries are expected to accede to a lower political standard than real democracy. Not only does this perpetuate the old colonial imagination, it is also fundamentally wrong.

  • Aziz Rana

The German Left Is Its Own Worst Enemy

Could Germany's left-wing parties unseat Angela Merkel in Sunday's election? Only if they bury the hatchet.

  • Paul Hockenos

Kenya’s New Electoral Authoritarianism

Elections are now used to legitimate authoritarian regimes, not herald liberal democracy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Kenya.

  • Aziz Rana

What Is Putin’s Endgame?

Russiagate is causing more stress than glee for Putin, who always thought Hillary would win.

  • Thomas Graham
  • Rajan Menon

A Witch-Hunt in Turkey

After Turkey's failed 2016 coup, retribution has become a farcical national obsession.

  • Umar Farooq

For Labour, Victory Next Time

Were Labour's gains in the recent British election overblown, or is there real cause for hope?

  • Martin O’Neill

Despair Is Not an Option

Bernie Sanders sat down with us to talk about the future of progressive politics.

  • Bernie Sanders
  • Archon Fung
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